


Dude...Let's Go Bowling

by mygreatestjoyandprivilege



Category: X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Crack, Attempt at Humor, Bowling AU, Crack, Erik and Charles are terrible at bowling, Gen, Please Don't Take This Seriously, and this is like pin bowling like in America, yeah I said Bowling AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-08
Updated: 2014-06-08
Packaged: 2018-02-03 20:39:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1756525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mygreatestjoyandprivilege/pseuds/mygreatestjoyandprivilege
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It's just a game, man." -The Dude (from The Big Lebowski)</p><p>An innocent end of the year celebration at the local bowling alley turns into a vicious battle between Erik and Charles because these men honestly can't agree on anything. Maybe one day they'll get along, but today is definitely not that day. Especially when Erik tries to cheat by using metal bowling balls.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dude...Let's Go Bowling

**Author's Note:**

  * For [musings-of-an-introvert](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=musings-of-an-introvert).



> When my best friend and I play the Kinect, apparently we come up with X-Men sports AU's, and this was by far the best one. And because friends write friends fanfiction, Abby: this beautiful piece of art is for you. You wanted a bowling AU, I gave you one. I couldn't stop laughing while I was writing this, so I hope you enjoy it! And to everyone else: really, don't take this seriously, it's supposed to be a joke but it was definitely fun to write haha but please read if you enjoy X-Men and maybe you'll laugh too!
> 
> Also: imagine young Erik and Charles doing this (aka James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender) rather than their older selves (because Fassy makes the best pouty faces and I love him for it). And yes I quoted The Big Lebowski in the summary because it is the stupidest movie about bowling to ever exist and fit this fic perfectly.
> 
> NOW GO FORTH AND READ ABOUT ERIK AND CHARLES BEING DUMB AND FAILING AT TEN PIN BOWLING.

It started out as such a simple celebratory outing to mark the end of final exams. The students at Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters were thrilled to be free of their schoolwork and were more than ready for a summer of fun with their fellow mutants.

One of the students had convinced Charles to take them all to the local bowling alley for an end of the year party. The owner, who supported the mutant-human peace cause enthusiastically, offered to close down early that day and privately open it for a few hours so the kids could all celebrate the end of the school year together. He was even providing free hotdogs, popcorn and sodas for everyone.

Charles had never bowled in his entire life and assumed it would be an added challenge to bowl from a wheelchair, but all the kids seemed so excited about it that he agreed to it all, albeit somewhat reluctantly. He was willing to do anything to make his students happy after the undoubtedly rough lives they had lived before coming to his special school for people like himself; it would be nice for them to do something fun and normal for once without a fear of being judged by others.

Charles had also managed to drag Erik and Logan along with him, insisting that they all had to be chaperones since their parents entrusted them all to be responsible for their children. Once inside, Erik had groaned and collapsed onto a chair, crossing his arms and looking annoyed. Logan parked Charles and his chair near Erik and returned a minute later with food and drinks. He sat down a few chairs away from Erik after handing Charles a bag of popcorn and shrugging at the disgusted look Erik had made at the food he was offered, then began devouring a hotdog unattractively.

“Are you going to sit like that and sulk the entire night?” Charles asked Erik, shoving a handful of popcorn in his mouth.

Erik glared at him. “I don’t even want to be here. I had plenty of work to do in my office, you know. Important work.”

“Of course you did.” Charles tossed a piece of popcorn at Erik’s head and missed, causing it to bounce off his chest instead. Erik shot Charles a menacing look. Charles simply smiled sweetly at him, batting his eyelashes innocently.

“Professor, would you like to play? We’re starting a new game in a few minutes,” said Jill, one of his students who had always been exceptionally bright in his classes.

Charles smiled at the little girl and replied, “No, I don’t think so, I’d rather just watch. You would all beat me terribly though, I’m sure.”

“Oh, so you’re afraid to lose, are you Charles?” said Erik, suddenly rising to his feet. “I’ll play if you play.”

Charles sighed and shook his head. “I’m only going to say yes because I know you’re going to whine about it for a week and insist you would have won regardless if I refuse. You’re on, old friend.”

Erik smirked and followed Jill over to the next lane, Charles wheeling himself after them.

“Hank is keeping score, let him know that you’re playing,” Jill told them before running off to her friends.

“Wow, both of you? I thought that chess was more your thing?” Hank said when Charles and Erik approached him.

“We are just full of surprises,” Erik said flatly, and Hank laughed nervously as Erik just stared him down, unsmiling, unsure if he was being sarcastic or not.

“Um…okay. Well have fun! And good luck to the both of you!” Hank said enthusiastically.

Erik went first and only managed to knock down three pins total. Charles laughed and clapped his hands. “Well done, Erik!” he yelled, and Erik glared at him, scowling.

With a bit of careful maneuvering, Charles positioned himself in his chair at the top of the lane and knocked over half the pins in his first throw. Jill ran up to him to give him another ball and he then picked up the spare pins on his next throw, letting out an enthused “Whoop!” and making a face at Erik when he returned to the sideline. Erik frowned and refused to look at him.

The next few rounds, Erik did horribly and Charles did decently. Charles was clearly enjoying gloating to Erik about such a trivial game, despite making almost as many mistakes. Erik was beginning to lose his patience and was growing more and more irritated each time he failed to knock down more than half the pins.

Finally, on his next turn, instead of picking up a bowling ball, he walked over to the next lane and removed a chunk of the metal track that made up the gutter out of the lane, quickly manipulating it into a spherical shape and digging three holes into it with his fingers to create a metal bowling ball.

“Erik you can’t—you can’t do that! That’s not even our property, now we have to pay for that! _You_ have to pay for that!”

Erik shrugged. “Isn’t this a strategy in any sport? Using your resources? I’m just trying to play the game.” He then threw the ball like normal then twitched his hand to make sure it landed directly into the middle of the pins at just the right speed to knock all of them down, succeeding in a perfect strike. He turned back to Charles and smirked.

“What the hell was that? No! Erik, that is not only destruction of private property, but that is _cheating_! You can’t use metal! No metal balls!” Charles shouted at him as he sat down next to him, casually spinning his makeshift metal ball in slow circles just above his hand.

Erik shrugged nonchalantly and looked at Charles while still spinning the ball. “I don’t see a sign anywhere that says ‘no metal balls allowed,’ do you?”

“That’s not even—you’re missing the point here!” Charles stuttered.

“The point is that you’re a sore loser Charles, and you can’t stand to see me win anything, even a mindless game of bowling.”

“That is not true! I just…I just don’t want anyone having an unfair advantage in this game, that’s all!” He scowled at Erik, dumbfounded that he would stoop to such a level.

“Careful Charles, too much stress may recede your hairline further. And besides, we’re mutants; we’re _always_ supposed to have the unfair advantage, especially when it comes to humans. It’s all for the greater good, my friend.”

“ _My hairline is not receding_!” Charles shouted, his face flushing. “And why must you make _literally everything_ about how mutants are superior to humans? This is not the greater good we’re talking about here, this is a game of _bowling_ , for god’s sake!” He sighed and shook his head, pinching the bridge of his nose. “You know what, fine. We’ll play it your way. You want to use a bloody metal ball? Fine. Now if you’ll excuse me, I believe it’s my turn.”

Charles was so worked up that he broke his winning streak, knocking only four pins over total.

“Ooh, better luck next time!” Erik shouted sarcastically from his seat. Charles wheeled around and glared at him, stopping himself next to Hank so he didn’t have to sit next to Erik anymore.

For Erik’s next turn, when he sent the ball rolling down the lane, Charles quickly manipulated his mind to force his hand to fly haphazardly to the left, causing only two back pins to knock over when the metal ball veered off-course.

“Charles!” Erik hissed. “You made me move the ball to the left! I felt it!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Charles said casually, picking at his fingernails.

“Stop being a prick. That is completely unfair and you know it.”

Charles shrugged and made a face at Erik, looking up at him. “If you can use your abilities, so can I. Who’s the sore loser now?”

Erik picked up the ball again for his second throw and only knocked down three more pins.

When he turned on his heel to shout at Charles, he put his hands up defensively. “I swear to god that was all you. Don’t work yourself up so much. It’s just a game.”

Fuming, Erik sat down, crossing his arms, his mouth in a hard line.

The rest of the game continued like this, with Charles occasionally using his abilities to distract Erik or cause the metal ball to miss the pins. Once he yelled “ _BELUGA WHALE_!” telepathically in Erik’s head just when he was about to toss the ball, startling Erik so much that the ball crashed to the ground loudly and almost fell into the gutter before he gained control of it once again. Erik was about ready to tear off Charles’ head when he turned around to see him laughing hysterically, covering his face as his shoulders shook with laughter.

They both continued to bicker and whine at each other as the game continued, and towards the end of it Logan was fed up with both of them from where he was watching next to Hank, resting his head on his propped up elbow. By this point, the rest of the students had backed away from Erik and Charles and were now playing their own separate games in the neighboring lanes (not that either of the men had noticed that they were now in a two person game).

Logan sighed loudly and stood up as Erik and Charles started going at each other again, arguing about arbitrary things, and walked over to them.

“I swear to god if you mess with my head one more time, I’m going to get my helmet!” Erik shouted in Charles’ face after another failed toss of the ball.

Charles scoffed. “Please, don’t be so dramatic, Erik. You don’t even have your helmet with you, it’s back at the school.”

“Yes I do!”

He paused. “Wait, really? Why?”

“For emergencies! Just like this!”

“Losing at a game of bowling hardly counts as an emergency.”

“Look, I didn’t even want to play this stupid game with you! You dragged me away from my work! I could be doing countless other productive things right now, but no! It’s always about what you want, isn’t it, Charles?”

“Well I think you owe it to me after what you did to me, Erik!”

“After what _I_ did to you? Please! You’ve done just as much!”

“I don’t know, leaving your best friend WITH A BULLET IN HIS SPINE, ON A BEACH, IN BLOODY CUBA, IS PRETTY GODDAMN HORRIBLE. I’D REALLY LOVE TO KNOW HOW I OUTDID YOU WITH THAT ONE.”

“YOU PUT ME IN A PRISON MADE OF PLASTIC IN THE PENTAGON AND ONLY GOT ME OUT SO YOU COULD CARRY OUT YOUR OWN PLANS. YOU WOULD HAVE LEFT ME THERE TO ROT FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE IF YOU HADN’T NEEDED ME.”

“YOU WERE ONLY IN THAT PRISON BECAUSE OF WHAT YOU DID TO ME, YOU IMBECILE.”

“JUST BECAUSE YOU DIDN’T WANT TO FURTHER YOUR FELLOW MUTANTS AS THE SUPERIOR SPECIES WE ARE BECAUSE YOU LOVED YOUR IDIOTIC HUMANS SO MUCH DOES NOT MAKE THAT MY FAULT. IT WAS JUST BAD TIMING.”

“YOU CURVED THE BULLET INTO MY BLOODY SPINE, ERIK.”

Logan stood right next to them as they screamed at each other and were so oblivious to him that they didn’t even notice him until he spoke.

“Sorry to interrupt you boys, but if everyone’s using their powers over in this lane, mind if I join in?” Logan asked, cutting off their childish banter.

Without waiting for a response, he walked over to the cart of bowling balls sitting next to the lane and let out the claws on one hand. He then shoved his claws into the three holes on the ball and walked to the top of the lane.

Logan threw his arm back then flung the ball forward…where it promptly flew straight up into the air and kept going all the way up into the rafters, where it then proceeded to crash through the ceiling and a few seconds later came back down through the hole, landing directly onto the hardwood in the middle of the lane and splintering it into pieces, leaving a giant gaping hole.

“Dammit,” Logan said under his breath. He turned to the group of students, who were all staring at him in shock and said cheerily, “Well kids, time to go!”

Erik sighed and wiped a hand over his face. Charles shook his head and started wheeling himself towards the exit.

“Call it a tie, maybe?” Erik offered, holding out his hand to Charles.

After a moment, he looked up and Erik and cracked a smile, taking his hand and shaking it. “Fair enough. Expect a rematch in the near future. But no powers. Just you and I and some _regular_ bowling balls.”

Erik nodded. “Sounds like a great idea. Let me wheel you out of here.”

They then set off towards the exit, Charles repeating his apologies to the owner of the bowling alley, promising to send a check in a few days to cover the cost of the damages.

 


End file.
